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Dessert

Royal Iced Cabinet Pudding

A chilled custard pudding with candied cherries, green grapes, sponge cake, and flavored with sherry or maraschino.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Royal Iced Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill a mold with a lid in a pan of ice until very cold.

  2. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  3. Boil the milk.

  4. Whip the yolks of the eggs until light, then add the powdered sugar.

  5. Cut the sponge cake into slices and soak them in sherry.

  6. Cut the green grapes in halves or quarters, removing the stones.

Make the custard

  1. Strain the soaked gelatine into the boiling milk, then add the egg mixture, stirring carefully to avoid curdling.

  2. Once the custard is cool, fold in the whipped cream and add the vanilla bean.

  3. In the chilled mold, pour a layer of custard.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the soaked cake, custard, and fruits in the mold until filled.

  2. Decorate the top with additional fruit as desired.

  3. Chill in the refrigerator for at least three hours.

  4. Serve cold on a silver dish, garnished with whipped cream and fruit.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the hot milk into a rich custard that sets as it cools.
Gelatine
Sets the custard so it holds its shape when chilled and sliced.
Cream
Whipped and folded in, it adds lightness, richness and a smooth texture to the custard.
Sponge cake
Forms the structure of the pudding, soaking up sherry while holding the layers together.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the yolks and dissolves easily into them before they are heated.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the hot milk. Egg proteins set when overheated, so they can scramble and turn grainy. Adding the eggs gradually while stirring gently keeps the custard smooth.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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